China's textile council seeking mutual understanding with U.S. counterpart

The China National Textile Industry Council announced on Wednesday that the council had exchanged views with its U.S. counterpart on textile cooperation when a U.S. delegation visited China recently.

The delegation included members from U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S.Federal Reserve System, U.S. bond market association, the Boeing company and George Washington University.

"Various circles in the United States lack necessary understanding of China's textile industry," said Xu Kunyuan, vice-president of the China National Textile Industry Council.

China has over 19 million textile workers and the production of textile-related raw materials involves 100 million Chinese farmers, Xu said.

The consummate industry chain in China is the main factor of boosting China's rocketing textile export, he said, attributing China's huge trade surplus with the United States to division of labor in the two countries.

"China's textile export offsets U.S. weakness in textile industry," he said.

Both sides should enhance cooperation and mutual understanding in this area, and exchanges between business circles should become an important way to solve future textile trade disputes, he said.

In 2005, the elimination of global textile quota led to China's textile export surge to the United States, which caused trade disputes and rounds of talks between the two countries.

In November 2005, the two countries signed an agreement on textile trade, placing restriction upon China's textile export to the United States in the next three years.

Xinhua